FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; She's Lovely, But Alas, She's Only Software

By ELVIS MITCHELL

Published: July 11, 2001

Sitting through the latest animated science-fiction film, ''Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,'' may send you hurtling back to the future and the 1982 megabyte hype of ''Tron'' for the last instance when a movie's electronically fashioned special effects, synergized with video-game appeal, were so widely trumpeted. And as was true of ''Tron,'' you may find yourself staring at this film's special effects to gauge their realism -- a much more diverting endeavor than following the story line.

For every advance in the world of special effects, narrative is pushed back a few squares on the game board or, in this case, the circuit board. Any hard, shiny, inanimate material, like metal or leather, looks great when rendered in computer graphics, a quality that makes the computer the perfect medium for a movie like ''Toy Story,'' where the plastic sheen and relatively inexpressive features of playthings become part of the allure. ''Toy Story 2'' was particularly well written, while ''Final Fantasy'' has the stolidness of a video game, from which it is derived. (The game is much more fun than the movie.)

''Final Fantasy'' is the first film with human leads played by nonactors, if you don't count ''Pearl Harbor.'' The characters are all created with computer software, and some of the visual effects are wondrous: the launch of a spacecraft, as everything explodes behind, it is particularly memorable, as are some of the dreamscapes in the mind of the film's heroine, Dr. Aki Ross, a compassionate scientist who has been fashioned to resemble a built-for-speed Bridget Fonda and whose job it is to motivate soldiers.

As you watch Aki, voiced by Ming-Na, you're struck by how realistic her hair is and imagine that much of the budget must have gone into giving it a special shampoo-commercial glow. She's almost sexy, except for her lips, which look as if they'd been laminated; apparently, they go a little heavy on lip balm in outer space.

The soldiers are all stalwart and true, as rounded as one-dimensional figures can be. The tough-as-nails Gray Edwards (voiced by Alec Baldwin), who looks like a combination of Ben Affleck and the B-movie leading man Bruce Campbell, leads the Deep Eyes Squadron. This elite military unit's assaultive ways are in direct opposition to Aki's more humanist approach. The rest of Gray's team -- Ryan (Ving Rhames), Neil (Steve Buscemi) and Jane (Peri Gilpin) -- have the testosterone-fueled fearlessness of the marine squad from ''Aliens.'' Aki's lone supporter is her mentor, Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland), who wants to find a way to use a group of free-floating spirits for the good of mankind.

It turns out that the alien creatures that Gray and his squad are battling -- menacing lizards and creepies that look as if they were made of the same material as Gummi Bears -- may be linked to the spirits that Aki and Sid are trying to find and preserve. The militaristic General Hein (James Woods) has no patience with peace-keeping missions, since his family was killed by the gelatinous-looking beasties. The aliens' consumption of the crackling blue souls of human prey may be the best reason to sit through the film; echoes of ''Cool!'' will be heard in multiplexes everywhere during these sequences.

The heroic efforts of the actors who supply the voices and give melodramatic import to almost every line reading, since the computer-generated galaxy is at stake, provide an eerie contrast to the on-screen characters. The lip movements of the animated figures are slightly slow, so you feel as if you're watching a badly dubbed Japanese creature feature from the 1960's. The dialogue is almost as stilted, and after a while you drift into that half-dream state that inert movies can create.

As hard as the off-screen actors work, you'll find that it was easier to suspend disbelief for the animated playthings in ''Toy Story 2'' than for the computer-created human figures in ''Final Fantasy.'' You miss the unchoreographed wayward tilt of a head or an improvised double take: the unpredictable physical chemistry of actors that computer science hasn't mastered -- yet. In a couple of years -- or sooner, given the pace of computer technology -- the cutting-edge visual effects of ''Final Fantasy,'' in which the characters' weightless tread makes it look as if they were moving in zero gravity, will seem quaint and disarming.